News of the Future This Week, March 21, 2018

“It’s not going to do any good to land on Mars if we’re stupid.”–Ray Bradbury

“You cannot be serious.”–John McEnroe

Is Vladimir Putin serious? He’s really going to put Russians on the moon by next year? Live Russians? Human Russians? Russian manikins, maybe. Or how about those nested Russian dolls? I have my hunches about his obvious hyperbole. Like maybe he’s goading a certain Western leader I won’t name to take it seriously and go broke trying to compete with him. All the while what he’s really doing is focusing his resources on hacking democracy and wreaking havoc.

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–Next Big Future reports on the progress–and relative merits–of AD-Astra’s VX200SSTM VASIMR® prototype space propulsion engine. Recent test firings have brought them one step closer to enabling earth to mars transit in as little as 4 to 6 weeks. SpaceX, with its BFR, has aims at making the transit at similar speeds.